Hong Kong: Foxconn Technology Group says its customers which include global technology giants Apple and Dell will have to pay more after it increased wages in China by nearly two-thirds in the aftermath of a spate of worker suicides.
The comments from Taiwan-based Foxconn came at an annual general meeting on Tuesday in Hong Kong, where protesters accused the company and Apple of poor corporate ethics. The 30 demonstrators held signs saying, "Workers are not machines. They have self-esteem," outside a hotel function room where shareholders of the group's Hong Kong-listed arm were meeting.
The company last week announced the second in a series of raises that would increase pay by up to 65 per cent at its factories in the southern city of Shenzhen. The company employs 300,000 people there making iPhones and other goods for Apple, Sony, Dell, Nokia and Hewlett-Packard.
Samuel Chin, chairman of the Hong Kong-listed Foxconn International Holdings, said the pay increases had been in the pipeline for months because of labour shortages in China.
"This matter has been discussed internally for several months already. We have experienced in the recent several months, difficulty of recruiting the necessary labour to support our operational needs," he said.
"Many of our customers also have operations, fairly extensive operations in China, so they understand what's going on. So we believe we will be able to have some success with the understanding to be able to offset some of the impact of the salary change."
Long due
The protesters also targeted Apple, waving a cardboard cutout of Chief Executive Steve Jobs with devil's horns and another placard featuring the company logo and the words "Bloody Apple".
Eleven workers have killed themselves and three attempted suicide at Foxconn's operations in China this year, mainly by jumping from buildings. Protesters laid flowers at an Apple shop in a tribute to the dead workers. Organiser Debby Chan said Apple should do a better job of monitoring labour.
